First Human Head Transplant

A lot of people concluded that the head is the most important part of our body. There are pacemakers to replace the heart and prosthetic to replace missing limbs. Technically, it’s quite close that almost any other body parts can be replaced or bypassed with science but the head is irreplaceable. But how long can we live with our head cut off? Is it just a second or two?

Head transplant. This might be a treatment that all cancer patients have been waiting for. A human head transplant is accurately what it sounds like as the removal of one’s living head including the brain and putting it into a new body. A 52-year-old, Italian neurosurgeon, Sergio Canavero shocked the world when he broadcasted last 2013 that he would execute the world’s first human head transplant this 2017. Until recently, a head transplant seemed completely unrealistic, but Dr Sergio Canavero believes it’s possible. Thus, he has been already dubbed by some as “Dr. Frankenstein,”

Canavero is a very famous surgeon. He is the an author of a book about central pain syndrome, founded and established surgical cortical brain stimulation for those who are suffering from Parkinson’s disease and finally, he spent his 35 years of his life working towards head and body transplant.

In his head transplant, he explained that a wheelchair-bound Russian citizen will be the first person to undergo a head transplant, Valery Spiridonov will be getting a new body. Spiridonov, 31-year-old who is suffering from Werdnig-Hoffman which is a muscle-wasting disease which is incurable agrees to give the head transplant a shot. He is cramped to a wheelchair with very limited movement of his arms and has problems in breathing and swallowing. With his condition worsening every day, he belongs to the 10 percent who get through into adulthood unlike some individuals who died within just the first few years of their lives. Valery Spiridonov affirmed that his family thoroughly supported his decision to be the first human to be subjected with such surgery.

As he knows that the disease will definitely kill him, Spiridonov is hoping that he will be given a second chance through this operation. He even publicized that his neurosurgeon would define how the extraordinary surgery was progressing in September and the world first method is aimed to take place in December 2017.

The Head Anastomosis venture or HEAVEN by Dr Canavero is very controversial on its right. The spinal cord will be trimmed, rectified, restored and fused onto a donor body and the skin stitched together again. They believe that Spiridonov will carry over his complete and entire self, including his cognition, self identity, and personality. If successful, the operation could still run into ‘unexpected psychological reactions’ from the patient as they get dominated to their new life, so a virtual reality territory to compose them for an advanced and different and body is being developed.

A lot of people are hoping that it will work out, but realistically some of them doubt it will. They don’t think this is the way humanity should go, since God doesn’t make mistakes, and how He made this Russian man is how God wants him. But because the surgery has been planned already, a lot of criticism aired and beamed. Some insisted that this procedure would mean we will still need people who die so we can use their bodies as a donor which is really close to killing someone in a really expensive way. Basically we would need a “body farm”. Would this be Immortality? If this is successful, then couldn’t they just put someone’s head on a younger body or something? Where one individual would look old as dirt in the face, but has the body of a 21 year old? It cannot be immortality, but it is significantly extended.

While those surgeons who are into this extraordinary surgery don’t get it if why are people so doubtful and negative about this. They even expressed and explained to the public that there’s a volunteer with a life threatening condition, who certainly know the risks, and then they will use a brain dead donor body that will be killed for organs no matter what, so this is only a win-win situation, there’s nothing to lose. That only some people are too less scientific and too skeptic. They didn’t hear any proper reasons why it should NOT work, only that it is unethical and that it will not work anyway. Nobody even thinks of considering the possibility or discussing certain difficulties or other details about it.

What about you? Aren’t you excited for this plan to save a human life? Has science gone too far?